The Theft of Magna Carta

The Theft of Magna Carta

 

First published in 1973

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1973-2014

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

 

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

 

This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

 

Typeset by House of Stratus.

 

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

 

 

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

 

www.houseofstratus.com

 

 

 

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as
Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron
.

Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:

 

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

 

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the
One Party Alliance
which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the
British Crime Writers' Association
, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing.
The Mystery Writers of America
bestowed upon him the
Edgar Award
for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate
Grand Master Award
. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.

 

There are some inconsistencies and inaccuracies toward the end of this book, relating to the security arrangements at Salisbury Cathedral and for Magna Carta as well as other priceless manuscripts. These discrepancies are quite deliberate, for I should hate to give any secrets away. One of the most heartening things I discovered in researching was how many security secrets exist. And I am sure that some were discreetly concealed from me.

As is my custom I wrote this book first out of remembered facts, for one is researching all the time and storing up much information – some of it false, faked or forgotten. After the first writing was done I went to the cathedral for help to get my facts right.

If at first I was regarded with mild suspicion when making inquiries, once it had been made clear that I really wasn't planning to steal the Sarum Magna Carta much careful and courteous help was given me by all the officials concerned.

I shall always be warmly grateful to them all.

 

JOHN CREASEY.

 

 

“How much is it worth?” Neil Stephenson asked.

“It is beyond price,” answered Caldicott.

“Don't give me that,” replied Stephenson. “Everything has its price, from the Koh-i-noor diamond to virtue. How much is it worth?”

Caldicott paused for what seemed a long time.

He was with the American in a fifteenth-century inn which overlooked the Wiltshire Avon and, not far across the water meadows, the mass of grey stone which was Salisbury Cathedral. It was early evening. They sat on green slatted chairs at a green-painted table ringed with the marks of many glasses and tankards of beer, as many glasses of wine. Behind them was the old, thatched inn with a new motel attached, and banks of flowers in bewildering and beautiful array. On one side, shining in golden glory onto the spire of the cathedral, the sun was still hours from its setting.

The evening was pleasantly warm. A breeze, off the river, was not strong enough to stir the grass or the leaves or the flowers, yet could be felt. The insects, all tiny, hovered in their secret flight, yet could be heard. Three swans, arching their necks with pretended indifference to a group of people watching them from the bank within the inn's meadow, looked as if they were made of millions of flakes of snow. Ducks in great variety, feathers green and blue and brown and grey, yellow and black and also white, gobbled at the low-flying insects; only one dived for whatever succulence was beneath the surface, its rear end poking toward the sky, and now and again disappearing only to bob up again.

Neil Stephenson was in his forties, sandy-haired, fresh- complexioned, with pale eyelashes and pale eyebrows; his face was a mass of liver-coloured freckles; so were his hands. Sitting, he looked squat because he was very broad. He wore a perfectly fitting pale green jacket, and sand-to-yellow trousers. In front of him was a dry martini, hardly touched although now and again he fingered the stem of the glass; whenever he did, sunlight shimmered on a gold ring on the third finger of his left hand.

Caldicott, Frank Caldicott, was English; brown tweed-clad; bushy brown-haired; bushy dark-eyebrowed. He had a heavy face and heavy jowl and a lugubrious expression. Curiously, his eyes were blue. In front of him was a whiskey-and-soda, the bubbles still rising occasionally from the bottom and sides of a plain glass.

“Frank,” Stephenson said, without impatience, “you don't often hesitate this long.”

“I'm not hesitating,” Caldicott replied.

“You haven't answered.”

“I answered,” Caldicott said.

“You didn't tell me how much it is worth.”

“I told you it's beyond price,” replied Caldicott, and he stared toward the cathedral and its noble spire. His gaze was not on the spire, however, but on a spot near a flying buttress above some saints which had escaped disfigurement or destruction when Cromwell sent his vengeful men against the churches which had been loyal to king as well as to creed.

This time, Stephenson did not give a glib reply, but watched Caldicott, whose eyes, caught aslanting by the sun, had not only a strange light but a strange intentness. More: they had a reflection of the spire and of a tree, between the bank and the cathedral; the tree had pale green leaves spread quite thin, so that it was like a veil between the inn and the church which was just two hundred years older.

“What are you looking at?” Stephenson asked. There seemed a touch of uneasiness in his voice, and he picked up his glass very quickly, and sipped the martini in the manner of an abstemious man. “Anyone would think you could see through the wall.”

Without taking his gaze away, without changing his expression, Caldicott picked up his whiskey-and-soda, sipped, and said: “In a way, I can.”

“I don't understand you today,” complained Stephenson. “Half the time you seem to be talking nonsense.”

“No doubt,” said Caldicott. “No doubt I do.” There was a dreamy note in his voice. “I'm a romantic,” he went on. “You didn't know that. I am a romantic and a dreamer, Neil. But you're not. You're a hard, practical realist, aren't you? You haven't a stick of humour in your makeup. You'd even take it seriously if I say I would like to jump into that river. I talk about a piece of history and you want to know how much it's worth.”

“Why don't you?” asked Stephenson.

“Why don't I what?”

“Jump into the river,” Stephenson said, glaring.

Caldicott seemed so taken aback that he gaped at the speckled face and the yellowish green eyes. For a moment there was utter stillness and silence between them, until the tension seemed to twang. Two things broke it. One was a woman coming from the side of the motel. She picked her way down a narrow, winding path, through antirrhinum and phlox, polyanthus and bright blue forget-me-nots, a lilac bush and a patch of grass gay with buttercups and daisies. The other was Stephenson, bursting into a guffaw of laughter, slapping his knee, making everyone on the river bank look at him. Two ducks waddled toward the water; blackbirds and sparrows, starlings and martins flew away from the raucous noise.

“Haw-haw-haw!” roared Stephenson. “You thought I was serious, didn't you? You thought I wanted you to jump into the water!” He leaned further back in his paroxysm of mirth, until suddenly his expression changed, alarm chased delight away and he thrust himself forward as his chair began to topple backward. He grabbed the table between thumb and fingers and slowly steadied himself. Safe, he gave another little cackle of laughter. “Didn't you?” He scrambled to his feet and saw that the black legs of the chair had sunk inches into rain-soaked turf. At the same time, he became aware of the woman, now on the grass and walking towards them.

She was small; not tiny, but small. She wore a loose-fitting suit of chain-knit, pearl-grey in colour. Her dark hair was beautifully groomed, almost as if she had come straight from a hairdresser. Her legs were exceptionally well shaped, and she walked with fawnlike delicacy. Her face had a masklike quality, not from makeup, which was not overdone, but from the set of her looks and the blankness in eyes so grey that they were silvery, although the sun reflecting off the water touched them with gold.

Caldicott stood up, admiration plain in his expression.

“Hallo, Sarah,” he said. “You're early.”

“Hi, Sal,” welcomed Stephenson. “Did you see me tip over?”

“You won't believe me,” the woman said in a smooth voice, “but I even heard your shout of terror.” She sat on a chair which Caldicott pushed into position for her, looking beyond both men to the cathedral; a glow began to soften her eyes.

“That wasn't a shout of terror,” denied Stephenson, beaming. “I told Frankie to go jump in the river and he thought I meant it!
Ha-ha-ha!
Didn't you, Frankie?”

“I certainly did,” Caldicott agreed solemnly. “What will you have to drink?” he asked Sarah. “I don't think there's any service out here but the bar's only a step away.”

“When are we going to have dinner?” asked Sarah.

“Whenever you like.”

“Then I'd like to sit here for five minutes and then go and eat,” Sarah replied.

She eased her chair around; two of the feet had already gone half-an-inch into the soggy turf. She did not remark on how beautiful it was but looked from the cathedral to the trees, from trees to river and the birds, from river to the flowered terraces. Her eyes kindled, their expression gentle, as if she felt both calm and content. A child, unnoticed until then, suddenly ran from his parents toward the river, making a dozen ducks cackle in fright and waddle away, and the smaller birds fly. Only a few yards away from the calm water, a young woman with long legs and a revealing mini ran with grace toward the child, while the man with her downed beer from a tankard and watched. The woman caught the child from behind and lifted it high; and the child pointed to now-distant birds and declared: “Birds.”

“That's right, birds,” his mother echoed. She had a long, plain face but moved beautifully even when she shifted the child from one side to the other so that he could see the whole expanse of river and meadow. Now she pointed: “Swan,” she said as a swan, still outwardly indifferent to noise and people, floated by in lordly manner.

“Swa',” the child mimicked.

The mother pointed again, and said: “Duck,” as a duck, emboldened, climbed clumsily from the river to the grass.

“ ‘Uck,” echoed the child.

Sarah watched the mother and child, Caldicott watched Sarah, Stephenson kept glancing toward the spot at which Caldicott had been looking before Sarah had joined them. It was he who broke the silence, and as he did so the mask fell over Sarah's face.

Does she hate him? Caldicott wondered. And he thought: She's a real beauty. I wonder how faithful she is to him.

Stephenson was saying: “Honey, would you believe there's a big pile of money in that cathedral? At least that's what Frankie says: a big pile of money.”

“You said that?” Sarah asked, her voice tainted by a hint of disgust.

“No,” answered Caldicott.

“Well, you implied—” Stephenson began.

“I told him that there was something in the cathedral that was beyond price,” corrected Caldicott, talking the other down. “And from then on he couldn't stop trying to put a price on its vellum.”

Sarah stared across the water.

“You mean, the copy of Magna Carta?”

“If copy is the word.”

“It's my word.”

“It just has to have a price,” insisted Stephenson, and then he muttered under his breath: “Everything has.” When neither of the others responded, he went on more loudly: “I don't understand Frankie tonight. He said he could see through walls.”

“And the ages,” declared Caldicott. “Centuries.”

“I tell you, he's crazy!”

“What can you see, Frank?” Sarah asked, and her gaze rested on him for a moment, with a hint of a smile at her eyes and lips.

The mother and the father passed, the child between them, a hand in a hand of each of its parents. “
‘Uck, s'an, bird
,” he was repeating. “
‘Uck, s'an, bird.
” They passed between the table and the limpid river. A white-coated waiter appeared, and hovered; so there was service.

“Change your mind?” urged Caldicott.

“All right,” Sarah said. “I'll have a tomato juice.”

“Just a tomato juice? No gin, rum, vodka—”

“A plain tomato juice,” insisted Sarah.

“A tomato juice,” echoed the waiter. “With or without Worcester sauce, miss?”

“Without,” said Sarah.

“Mine's a martini,” Stephenson said. “Make it very dry.”

“With a twist of lemon, sir, or an onion?”

“Plain, not fancy,” Stephenson growled.

“Nothing for me,” Caldicott said; his glass was half-full, he sipped only a little whenever he raised it to his lips. “Will you ask the head waiter if we can have a window table? We'll be along in ten minutes or so.”

“I'll see what I can do, sir,” the waiter replied. “A table for how many, please?”

“The three of us.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Caldicott was only partly distracted by the man and his questions; he was much more concerned with Sarah. The way she held her head, tilted slightly backward, the curve of her throat, the shallow V of her blouse and the gentle swell beneath – my God! What a woman she was; and could be. He felt a stirring in his loins, rare for him unless he was alone and close with a woman, and then reminded himself that he was at least as intrigued by her reaction to the cathedral and her quiet: “You mean, the copy of Magna Carta.” As far as he knew she was as fresh to Salisbury as Stephenson, who hadn't the faintest idea what was here. She had known; she had a great deal of general knowledge and hid it behind that expression of inscrutability.

She looked back at him.

“Well, what can you see, Frank?”

Stephenson drained his glass, began to tip the chair back again and hurriedly righted it, then sat leaning forward on the table. He did not appear to be listening but Caldicott was quite sure that with his literal mind he took in everything that was said, the fanciful and the real. As he talked, Caldicott himself wondered what had stirred him. He was by reputation a taciturn or at best a matter-of-fact man.

“I can see the bishops and clergy, and the abbot supervising the building of the cathedral,” he explained dreamily. “And the heavy stones being drawn by men with ropes on their shoulders. I can see the stone masons and the labourers, the wood-workers and the painters, on the rough scaffolding. And I can see the little town, like a toy town, huddled close by. I can see pigs and hens and cattle grazing in the close, too. Have you seen the close?”

“What's a close?” asked Stephenson, perfunctorily.

“The area contained by the cathedral walls,” Caldicott answered. Now the glow in his eyes had a dreamy quality. “And I can see the vellum in the cathedral library over there, one of the four remaining copies of Magna Carta left of twelve originals which were made of the document.”

“Not copies,” corrected Sarah. “Originals. There were twelve, and each one was inscribed separately.” She smiled warmly at Caldicott. “Can you see the scribes working?”

“Yes,” Caldicott said. “I can also see the barons at Runnymede, forcing John to sign each one!”

“Set his seal,” Sarah corrected again. “There's a lot of argument as to whether he ever really signed any of the charters.
Is
a seal a signature?” she asked musingly.

“Say,” interrupted Stephenson.

“Yes?” asked Caldicott, patiently.

“How many of these copies – okay, versions – are there?”

“Originally there were twelve,” Sarah repeated. “Today—”